Letters from Distant Places
by Dot
Summary: It was absolute paradise. And all she wanted was him. (Post-NFA; please RR)
1. Cabo

A/N: I like Nina. I've only recently been able to watch the fifth season, and you know, I _really_ like Nina. And I was feeling angsty. So Nina + angst this story. Please R+R.

_**Letters from Distant Places **_

Mexico was gorgeous in the springtime. One morning out on the beach, and Nina understood why people gravitated toward the clear waters and white sand of Cabo. It was absolute paradise.

And all she wanted was him.

She'd never been in love before; she didn't recognize the warning signs right off. And honest to God, she didn't understand it. Well, actually, she did, because, really… What red-blooded American woman stood a chance against the billowing coat, the piercing stare, the cars? Not her, that was for sure. And the vampire thing? More than a little hot. But those things were quickly overridden, by his quiet smile and the longing in his eyes when he watched the sunrise through the windows of his penthouse. She'd wanted to give him that sunrise, out on a beach or in the mountains, somewhere other than that damn law firm. And it dawned on her, just as the sun was dawning on LA. She loved him.

She didn't say it out loud, of course, because heroic vampire thing aside, Angel was a guy, and it wasn't as if he had been the most willing participant in the early stages of their relationship. But staring at the warm waves that bubbled up around her feet, feeling the sun on her back, she wondered if she should have. If that would have made the difference.

She doubted it. Angel had a stubborn streak.

She was about to go in, when she heard a voice behind her. "Nina Ash?"

"Yes?"

"A letter for you," the man said in accented English. She raised a brow as she took the bulky envelope. An Irishman delivering mail in Mexico?

"Thank you," she replied, digging into the pocket of her jean shorts. She handed him a bill. He smiled a little, thin face melancholy, and nodded before turning away.

There was nothing on the envelope except her name, scrawled in pretty, old-fashioned script. She recognized the handwriting, and sunk down in the sand, ripping it open, then just stared at what was in her hands. A letter, folded, and a plane ticket.

Her heart stopped.

Or that's what it felt like, because she knew then that he was dead.

Her hands were shaking, but she managed to unfold the letter without tearing the crisp edges of the paper. For a minute she just stared down at the words, letting them blur together in blue-black swirls, then let the letter fall. Her hands gripped the plane ticket instead.

He should have arrived that night.

Nina closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her face, letting the ticket crumple as the cool paper molded to her face. He'd wanted to be with her. That was almost enough to make her hate him.

Almost.


	2. Fly Away Home

A/N: It _was_ supposed to be a one shot, but then I started thinking. So here's more. I don't know how long this will continue… This might be the end of it, it might not. Please read and review.

**Fly Away Home**

The flight was too long. The sun was streaming through the window, the little boy behind her was kicking the seat, and she wanted just let it go and cry again, because really, an hour on the beach and another in bed was not enough to get over the man you lost without ever really knowing him.

Amanda was placidly sitting beside her, drawing in the sketchbook Angel had bought her for her birthday. Nina hadn't told her or Jill yet; it would be too hard to explain how she'd heard. It was a relief, almost, keeping the grief to herself, for the time being, at least. She knew Amanda wouldn't take the news well.

She started to look over at Amanda, instead of out the window, but Amanda stopped her. "I'm drawing you, Aunt Nina. You can't move."

Nina smiled, her lips tightening over her teeth. It felt strange; Nina didn't know if it was because of her ever-heightening senses, or if it was because smiling was wrong when Angel… and Wesley and Gunn and Spike and the not-Fred blue thing… were all dead.

"All right. You can look."

Amanda got better everyday. The harshness in the lines that made up her eyes had softened, and the shape of her nostrils was dead on. "That's really good, sweetie."

"Good enough to show?" Amanda asked, winking at Nina.

Nina felt the bagel she'd eaten that morning slam upward, toward her throat. She stood quickly and nearly ran for the bathroom, slamming the door just in time for the contents of her stomach to spill out in time with her tears.

And she stayed there, curled on the cold floor of the business class section bathroom, wondering just how she was going to explain that there would be no more art shows in the penthouse of Wolfram and Hart to an adoring little girl, when she didn't even understand it herself.

She'd never been to the Hyperion. Angel had mentioned it once or twice in the snippets of history he'd given her on Angel Investigations. She'd imagined it in black and white, like an old detective movie, with beat up leather couches and a desk, complete with typewriter and ancient phone. What she got was entirely different- elegant and modern, with smooth lines and colors that her artist's eye immediately latched onto and fell in love with. She could see them in this building, held in tight by its nurturing walls and safe in their "helpless-helping, dysfunctional family." Fred was perched at that counter, chewing on a pencil, glasses perched on her nose; Wesley sat behind that desk, reading a book in some ancient language; Angel was polishing an axe and talking cars with Gunn, who wasn't wearing a suit, but casual slacks and a sweater. Her imagination recreated them all, living, breathing, and it didn't matter that she wasn't in the vision. It mattered that they were alive there, because the world needed heroes.

The world needed Angel.

The stairs above her creaked, and her head snapped up. There was a man descending the stairs; he was young and skinny, brown hair messily spread across his forehead and blue eyes questioning. She took a deep breath, dormant werewolf inside testing the air, and was surprised at the words that left her mouth. "You aren't human."

The questioning left, turned to understanding, and he stepped off of the last stair. "You the art student?"

"Yes."

"I'm the… I'm Connor."

Angel hadn't told her about any Connor, but she nodded anyway. "Nina."

"Some of his things are upstairs. I can show you." Connor turned back around and started up the stairs. She followed without hesitating.

Angel's room smelled like him, even though it had been a year since he'd set foot in it. She closed her eyes and breathed it in for a moment, letting her head fall back and just remember. _Too few memories, not enough time…_ Nina sighed and knelt down beside the box on the ground.

"I think he took everything else to Wolfram and Hart." Connor sat down across from her, eyes on the folded cardboard top of the box. "I've been trying to work up the guts to open it."

She didn't hesitate. A flick of her wrist and the flaps were open.

And they just stared into the box, neither daring to touch anything inside.


	3. A Face Through a Window

A/N: One more after this. Bear with me. Thank you all so much for the reviews! They mean the world to me.

**A Face Through a Window**

The silence was not comfortable, and it was not companionable. It was heavy, and she watched Connor openly, as he watched her. He was dressed like a typical teenager, jeans and a faded gray t-shirt. But there was something in his eyes, a sorrow or heavy knowledge, and she _had_ to say something, because it the smells of the room were killing her. She was neck-deep in memories that weren't even her own, and she knew Connor felt it too.

"Were you around when Angel got turned into a puppet?"

The weary eyes snapped to hers immediately, widening. Then he burst into hysterical laughter. "A puppet?"

"He looked a little like the Count. You know, from Sesame Street. Our first date was that day."

"You went on a date with a puppet?"

"It was complicated."

"We sang karaoke once. 'Mandy'." At her incredulous look, he shrugged. "Higher power took us over."

"Higher powers like Manilow?"

"No. Angel did," he said, and then he was moving, his hand dipping into the box and face peering into it. Then, almost triumphantly, he pulled out a record and handed it to her. "See?"

Barry Manilow smiled up at her from the cover slip of the vinyl. She snickered. "Wow. Good taste in cars. Not in music."

Connor wasn't listening anymore; he had dug something else out of the box- a crumpled sheet of off-white paper- and was staring at it. She craned her neck to get a better look. He noticed, and the spell that had bound him to the paper was broken. He shoved it at her.

It was a drawing, soft pencil lines blurred by the crumpling of the paper. But it was easy to see that the woman was gorgeous, light haired with sad eyes, still young despite the lines that had worked themselves into her face. "She's beautiful," Nina said, wondering if it was Angel's Roman friend with the annoying name.

"She was my mother."

_Not the Roman then. _"Angel knew your family?"

"Angel was my family."

"Oh," she said, and that was all she could say for the moment. The next thing she thought to say was, "I thought vampires couldn't have children."

"There was a prophecy…" he trailed off, his eyes not looking at her, then visibly shook himself out of the trance. "It was a whole big thing."

"You look like her." Nina handed the drawing back to him.

He studied the picture carefully, as though seeing her for the first time. "More like her than him."

"I bet they made one hell of a couple."

Connor's lips turned up in a bitter grin; it looked out of place on his young face. But he didn't argue, instead just saying, "I bet you did too."

"You think they're together, wherever they are? Angel and…"

"Darla." He was silent for a moment. "I don't know. A part of me hopes so."

The silence they lapsed into after that was different. Not quite comfortable, but Nina felt more at ease as they both began digging things out of the big cardboard box. It was as if she was looking through his life before Wolfram and Hart- she wasn't deluded enough to say 'before her'- and it was like staring through a window back in time. Little mementos filled the box to the brim; a ticket stub to the ballet, a miniature hockey stick, a picture of Angel with a baby she could only assume was Connor, and a thousand other little things that made up Angel the man, not Angel the hero or Angel the CEO. It was like she could see him, in the pattern the knickknacks made as she and Connor spread them around the floor in front of them. And it was somehow comforting to have him there, if only through things he'd left behind.

After all, mementos are all that's left behind when vampires die. Except dust.


	4. The Words We Should Have Said

A/N: And this is it. Thanks for all the reviews- you guys are awesome.

The Words We Should Have Said

She stayed all night, sitting up with Connor, going through that box. There was a story for every picture, even one for the little knife thrown haphazardly among all the other knickknacks. The knife story brought out the happy, boyish Connor ("The Glashkul tried to rip apart some virgins, but Gunn and I chased him down to the sewers, and man, it was _so_ cool when he just disintegrated," he'd gushed, his voice excited like it was all a movie he had seen), but the picture stories had been different- he had been a little boy retelling the death of his soul. His voice was devoid of feeling at those times, and it was like he was as dead as his father was. But he kept talking; Nina guessed that he needed it as much as she did.

It was vindicating, knowing she wasn't the only one who remembered this crazy world. Knowing she wasn't the only one stuck in it.

At the bottom of the box, there was a small velvet box, and Connor took it out and opened it with careful fingers. A small gold cross rested inside, and he shook his head. "I don't know whose it was."

"It's beautiful."

He stared down at it, then looked back at her. "Do you want it?"

"Are you sure?"

"I'll never wear it, anyway." He smirked. "Not my style."

She took it, running the chain through her fingers, and then slipped it on. "Thank you."

She didn't just mean for the cross and he knew it. His startling blue eyes locked with hers. "I grew up in a hell dimension. Don't really remember much of it. But I remember the pain. Angel… My dad, he lived, and died, to stop people from feeling that pain. I get it now. And I guess I love him." He scoffed, shook his head. "I never told him that. I wish I could have."

Nina felt the tears start to come again. "So do I."

"I'm tired of regrets," Connor said, then blinked away his own tears. He peered into the box. "It's empty."

She heard what he left unsaid. It was empty; there was no reason to stay anymore. "It's almost dawn." It was Tuesday. On Tuesdays, she had ceramics class, but she doubted she would go. "I should get going."

She gathered up the small stack of things that Connor had given her- a picture of Angel, Wesley, and Gunn, a half full sketchbook, a rumpled bow tie that smelled so strongly of Angel, and a few other little things. She got to her feet slowly, taking her time memorizing the room, the boy in front of her. It was really over, and when she turned around there was no going back. "Goodbye, Connor."

She turned to go. And then stopped when Connor's voice rang out from behind her. "Wait." She faced him again. "Tonight's the full moon."

She knew that it was, fever and hunger creeping into her bones. "Yes."

"Angel… He told me. About you." She didn't say anything, and so he continued. "Wolfram and Hart… You can't go there."

"Oh." Of course, he was right. She knew that she couldn't go there, but she hadn't thought of it.

"There's a cage. Downstairs. It's solid. I could come back."

She fingered the cross around her neck, and took one last deep breath in. Her scent mingled with Angel's, one fresh, one stale, both completely devoid hope of any sort of future. She could smell it still- despair was strong, like fear. He had been right in the end. He hadn't had a future.

"I'll be here at six," Nina replied. He nodded, and she turned away again.

She smiled before walking out of the door. Maybe she would make it, losses aside. After all, Angel had died to save the world. The least she could do would be to live in it.


End file.
